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Large Basements A Problem

Kenneth Collum said the basements of many new construction projects extend beyond the house’s footprint and include bedrooms.
Kenneth Collum said the basements of many new construction projects extend beyond the house’s footprint and include bedrooms.
Christopher Walsh
Village officials talk of the ‘iceberg’ effect
By
Christopher Walsh

Citing “the amount of money coming into the village, and what this money can do,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and his colleagues on the East Hampton Village Board heard last Thursday about the mushrooming number of basements that extend beyond the footprints of their houses, providing more living space but also adding more “density.”

Kenneth Collum, the village’s code enforcement officer and fire inspector, told the board that among recent residential renovations and teardown-rebuild projects, almost every one is not only rebuilding to the limit of the allowed gross floor area but fully developing subterranean basements to include bedrooms and bathrooms as well as home theaters and recreation rooms. While these basements are not adding to a structure’s mass, he said, they do bring more people, more cars, and more congestion. This is a particular concern on smaller residential streets such as Mill Hill Lane, Meadow Way, Cooper Lane, and Conklin Terrace, Mr. Collum said.

Of 41 demolition permits issued last year, he said, 35 were for a teardown and reconstruction. “We have seen where basements extend out underground,” beyond the footprint of the house, Mr. Collum said. “Because of that, we raised a question about G.F.A.” (gross floor area).

New York State law allows bedrooms to be situated in basements provided there is proper egress. While zoning codes in nearby towns do not regulate the gross floor area of basements, Mr. Collum suggested, as a first step, restricting their dimensions to the physical footprint of the house.

“If we do go forward with this,” he said, “we’re going to make a lot of nonconforming-use properties. We have to look at that as well.”

Such restrictions might be unnecessary on larger lots, said Philip O’Connell, chairman of the village’s planning board, but he worried aloud that, should they be enacted, other owners would wait for a certificate of occupancy before finishing the basement. “Then you’re not getting the benefit of the review from the health department,” he said. “It’s going to promote unsafe conditions.”

Another thing to consider, he said, was “people starting to go down two stories in their foundation. I think that’s something that should be limited also.”

Lys Marigold, vice chairwoman of the village’s zoning board of appeals, presented a more extreme scenario. In “iceberg houses” in London, she said, residential structures can extend three stories below ground level. “What you see aboveground is the tip of the iceberg,” she explained.

While the high water table makes that unlikely in East Hampton, she warned the board about applications before the zoning board in which multiple additional bedrooms are sought in subterranean spaces, which would inevitably add more cars and people to the village.

“The village in the summer can hardly handle any more cars,” Ms. Marigold said. “It’s a stretch on our ecosystem . . . If each house on all these streets goes from three to six bedrooms, what is going to be the long-term implication?

Richard Lawler, a board member, said that if such houses were rented, the additional vehicles and attendant traffic and noise would significantly affect neighbors’ quality of life. With the emergence of short-term rental websites like Airbnb, Ms. Marigold replied, “it’s going to be explosive.”

Board members discussed with Linda Riley, the village attorney, how regulations might be enacted while maintaining homeowners’ rights. “You need to zero in on what you see as the issue you want to address,” Ms. Riley said, suggesting that if vehicle congestion is the issue, “maybe we should focus the research there. I don’t really know, sitting here, whether it would be lawful to limit the number of bedrooms in a basement. I could look into that. It’s relatively unprecedented in this area.”

“My concern is that if we go forward, we have to do a lot of due diligence to make sure we’re not creating a huge zoning issue,” Mr. Collum said. “We have to look at all those things to make sure we’re not creating a lot of nonconforming properties.”

The mayor called the discussion “an opening salvo” in that due diligence. “We all recognize what’s happening within the footprint of our beautiful Main Street and secondary bucolic roads . . . To an extent, it’s beyond our control.” The board had a responsibility to “grapple with this problem,” he said, and “if it means piecemeal, we’ll certainly do it piecemeal.”

A group will be appointed to study the issue in concert with the zoning and planning boards, he said, predicting an incremental approach.

 

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